UNITED STATES COURT OF APPEALS FOR THE SIXTH CIRCUIT

┐ INTERNATIONAL OUTDOOR, INC., │ Plaintiff-Appellant, │ > No. 21-1544 │ v. │ │ CITY OF TROY, MICHIGAN, │ Defendant-Appellee. │ ┘

Appeal from the United States District Court for the Eastern District of Michigan at Detroit. No. 2:17-cv-10335—George Caram Steeh III, District Judge.

Argued: June 14, 2023

Decided and Filed: August 10, 2023

Before: BOGGS, SUHRHEINRICH, and WHITE, Circuit Judges. _________________

COUNSEL ARGUED: J. Adam Behrendt, BODMAN PLC, Troy, Michigan, for Appellant. Allan T. Motzny, CITY OF TROY, Troy, Michigan, for Appellee. ON BRIEF: J. Adam Behrendt, Gordon J. Kangas, BODMAN PLC, Troy, Michigan, for Appellant. Allan T. Motzny, Lori Grigg Bluhm, CITY OF TROY, Troy, Michigan, for Appellee.

BOGGS, J., delivered the opinion of the court in which WHITE, J., joined in full. SUHRHEINRICH, J. (pp. 11–12), delivered a separate opinion concurring in the judgment. _________________

OPINION _________________

BOGGS, Circuit Judge. International Outdoor, Inc. (“International Outdoor”) sought permission to erect billboards in the City of Troy. After the City denied International Outdoor’s No. 21-1544 Int’l Outdoor, Inc. v. City of Troy, Mich. Page 2

permit application and request for a variance, International Outdoor sued, claiming that the City’s sign ordinance (“Ordinance”) violated the First Amendment. International Outdoor argued that the Ordinance’s variance procedure imposed an invalid prior restraint and that its permit exceptions were content-based restrictions on free speech.

In a prior appeal, we affirmed the district court’s grant of summary judgment to the City on International Outdoor’s prior-restraint claim. But we reversed the district court’s dismissal of the content-based-restriction claim and remanded for the court to consider whether the Ordinance, with the permit exceptions, survived strict scrutiny. While it does not, the permit exceptions are, as the district court held on remand, severable, leaving intact the Ordinance’s height, size, and setback requirements. Because International Outdoor’s proposed billboards do not satisfy these valid, content-neutral standards, we affirm.

I. BACKGROUND A. Facts

International Outdoor is an outdoor-advertising company that erects billboards in southeastern Michigan. The City regulates signs within its jurisdiction, including billboards, under Chapter 85 of its City Code. The original version of the Ordinance required a permit and the payment of a fee, for any sign––unless the sign fell within one of six exceptions. Street signs, small ground signs, flags, and “temporary signs” were exempt from the permit requirement. The latter category included real-estate signs, signs advertising garage, estate, or yard sales, political signs, and holiday signs, among others.

The Ordinance also contained specific size, height, and location requirements for “ground signs,” including billboards. In certain districts,